But that was the wrong question. If I had a gun in my hand and my mother was standing in front of me, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.
As soon as the house was quiet, I crept out of my bedroom. I carefully made my way down the hall to the spare bedroom. My heart was beating very fast, but at the same time, I felt good. Really good. I didn’t realize how much I wanted to do this.
The spare bedroom was dark and the double bed was made up. I crouched down next to the bed and felt around until my fingers grazed the metal case. Bingo. I yanked it out from under the bed, my hands tingling in anticipation.
Until I saw the padlock on the gun case.
I cursed under my breath. No swearing was allowed in our home, but I learned at school. Anyway, I wasn’t going to be able to get to the rifle. So much for that plan.
I shoved the case back under the bed. My stomach growled loudly. I didn’t have enough for dinner. My mom made only a small portion of chicken, so I had about a quarter of what anyone else had. I was starving. If I told her how hungry I still was, she would have yelled at me that I was ungrateful. But now that she was in bed, I could go down to the refrigerator and sneak a snack.
I crept down the stairs to the kitchen. Our staircase was creaky. Each step sounded like a gunshot, especially the third one from the top. But my mom didn’t wake up.
I yanked open the refrigerator and looked at the contents. I felt hungry enough to eat everything in the fridge. I was skinny. Skinnier than any kid in my grade. The other kids teased me that I was a skeleton. When I took my shirt off in the gym locker room, you could count my ribs.
I made myself a sandwich. With roast beef from the good deli that my mom bought specifically for my dad. Muenster cheese. Lots of mayonnaise and Dijon mustard. My mouth watered looking at it.
But just as I sat down at the kitchen table, I heard the crash from upstairs.
It was coming from my mother’s room. I took a quick bite of my sandwich, then pushed my chair back and stood up again. What was she doing up there?
I took the stairs more briskly on the way up. My parents’ bedroom was at the end of the hallway. I listened for another sound. But it was quiet.
I carefully walked to the end of the hallway. Dimly, it occurred to me that maybe my mom had the key to the gun case. Maybe she thought I was the one driving my father away and she had the same plan I did. Pretend she heard an intruder, then blow me away.
Would she really do something like that?
When I got to her bedroom, I pressed my ear against the door. No sound. I rapped my fist against it.
“Mom?”
Again, no answer.
My stomach was doing flip-flops. Maybe she was just asleep. Except what was that loud crash?
I reached out and slowly turned the doorknob. The first thing I saw was the body sprawled out on the floor. My mom, right next to the bed. Passed out on the carpet, a trail of drool leaking from her lips.
I stared at her a moment. Why was she asleep on the carpet?
And then I saw the pill bottles on the nightstand. Four of them.
I stepped over my mother’s body, and I took a closer look at the bottles. They were all empty. I picked up the first bottle. Take one pill for difficulty sleeping.
I sunk onto the bed as I realized what she had done. She took all the pills in the house. And now she was passed out on the floor, probably needing her stomach pumped like I heard Dan Chadwick did at the New Year’s Eve party I didn’t get invited to.
And if that didn’t happen, she would die.
I put the pill bottle back on her nightstand. I crept over her body and left the room, closing the door behind me. Then I went downstairs and finished my sandwich.
Chapter 31
CLAIRE
The cabin looks empty.
It’s dead silent, first of all. There’s a beat-up sofa in the middle of what appears to be the living room, with rips in it and stuffing coming out of one of the pillows. There’s a small fireplace that’s covered in a layer of soot, a half-size bookcase with a few hardcovers and paperbacks inside, and a kitchen alcove with a sink and gray-tinged, rusty refrigerator.
Oh my God. A sink!
All three of us run for the sink. Jack gets there first and hits one of the faucets. I almost cry with happiness when water comes out of the tap. Water! Clean water that’s slightly tinged with brown but at least doesn’t have flecks of mud in it. And we don’t have to ration it. We can drink as much as we want!
There are glasses in the cabinet above the sink, and Jack passes them around. The glasses look grimy and smudged, but it doesn’t matter. We each fill up our glasses and drink until we have finished the contents, then we go back for seconds. The water has a metallic aftertaste, but I could not care less. It tastes like fine wine after what we’ve been drinking the last two days.